And I think the two time periods in the comic should probably overlap. They definitely overlap. The period in question should start no later than 1806 or so, when the mountain men era began, and quite possibly much earlier. And Western literature was written during that period. It's arguable that t...

I wonder where entomology lies on this spectrum, perhaps near marine biology.... etymology is probably somewhere near mathematics, except for those etymologists who get their subject confused with entomology...

If we divert the N-S canal through the 4th dimension, we could avoid the bridge-over or tunnel-under question altogether. Of course, then it'd probably get in the way of someone's hyperspace bypass....

Can anyone explain the 'So am I. So am I' in the final panel? I'm not from the USA ... Electoral polls are usually done state by state. What the advisor is saying is that BHG's support among voters in several states in central part of the country is lower than expected, i.e. "weakness in the M...

Years ago, I remember reading an SF story about a massive earth movement in the central part of the US. I'm fairly sure it was written before plate techtonics were accepted by geologists and it may have been inspired by the '64 Alaska quake. The story didn't have characters or a plot. It was just a...

Years ago, I remember reading an SF story about a massive earth movement in the central part of the US. I'm fairly sure it was written before plate techtonics were accepted by geologists and it may have been inspired by the '64 Alaska quake. The story didn't have characters or a plot. It was just a ...

I had to go to explainxkcd to confirm that something was wrong with the labels on the graph. The left most label is supposed to be 5AM. This makes the graph cover 26 hours. The extra two hours are from small regions within the timezones near the dateline, that want to be on the same day as the othe...

Are these oz as in 1/16lb, or floz? And are floz standardized between US and imperial systems? (e.g. is a US pint exactly 4/5ths an imperial pint?) These are fluid ounces. The US fluid ounce is about 4% larger than the Imperial fluid ounce. The Imperial fluid volume system is based on the volume of...

All this political talk and I'm just wondering how Randall picked which landmarks to include. :P I happen to be pumped because he included Hatcher Pass and Summit Lake (north of Wasilla, AK) because that happens to be my favorite few square miles on the planet. "Landmarks from Wikipedia."...

We've already tried having an egomaniacal billionaire who believes racist conspiracy theories about the media. It's not working out so great. OK, we got one rotten apple. And there's other billionaires I wouldn't vote for either, or for that matter, walk across the street to piss on them if they we...

My thought: just skip #2 through #7. ETA: more thoughts: add billionaires who own their own spaceship company immediately after #8. I don't think there are any of those that satisfy the "Natural Born Citizen" requirement. Half of them do. And it's not like there aren't lots of others on t...

"Gif" is pronounced that way by truncation of the word "gift" By you and a group of other people it's pronounced that way. By myself and others mostly who got online in the early 90s and Steve Wilhite, who is the guy who wrote the damn format, it's pronounced Jif, because that's...

He missed "Blue" in the type of moons. I'd think the Libation of the Mason-Dixon Line (the Pennsylvania-Maryland border, in part), would be Rye Whiskey. Of the Prime Meridian, Gin. I think there's something about people on one side of the Mason-Dixon going just across the border to buy boo...

As of 2012, the state of the art neutrino communications link operated at 1/10 bits per second. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/mar/19/neutrino-based-communication-is-a-first . That's pretty bad through-put, even if the rate has doubled every year since then. There was a recent advanc...

Looks like the Planetary Protection Officer position is open. Now don't everyone jump up and apply; please note you will have severe competition . Personally, I'm going to wait for the Mars Czar position to open up. My first act, of course, will be to change the position's name. I think I'll go with...

You're not one of those "Cher never walked on the Moon" people, are you? Sheesh... I'm more of a "Cher never did a Moonwalk" people, myself. And no, don't show me a utube of her doing one. Utube is a known repository of fake videos. It probably has a video of Russell launching a...

The new incinerator plays "Light My Fire", "Burnin' for You", and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" when it's operating. And, when the firmware determines the pilot light is out, "We Didn't Start the Fire". Could it be upgraded to a "churnin' urn of burnin' funk...

How about we allow the stars to be dynamically changed? Perhaps different emojis to reflect the latest tweets by our Fearless Leader 1 . Or one emoji for the tweets, one for a reply by the opposition, and the last for ... not sure... maybe the stock market movement... foreign reaction... what the Po...